Chasing Happy Endings
by theevilregal
Summary: Takes place after the season 2 finale. Regina and Emma team up to find Henry, getting lost in Neverland on the way. Swan Queen.


"Ms. Swan, what exactly do you think you're doing?" Regina asked, and the blonde froze with her hand just an inch away from the ship's steering wheel. Regina stood up from the crate she'd been sitting on and moved to stand in front of Emma. "You weren't thinking of steering this ship, were you?"

"I, uh..." All Emma had wanted was to speed up their trip. They had been on Hook's ship for two days, and still all she could see were clouds. Hook had said the trip would take three or four days, but Emma couldn't wait much longer. She kept imagining Henry attached to torture equipment, like Regina had been only a few days earlier. "I just wanted to get there faster."

Regina put her hand on the wheel so that Emma wouldn't reach for it and turn the ship in the wrong direction. "Ms. Swan, you've never captained a ship. And you don't know the first thing about traveling between worlds."

Emma sighed and sat down on a bundle of ropes. "Then you do it."

"Excuse me?"

"You captain the ship. We've got to get off of this thing soon; Hook and Gold might kill each other if we don't. Or, you'll try to kill my parents. And we need-"

"We need to get to Henry." Regina finished Emma's sentence. Emma nodded and Regina put both of her hands on the wheel. "I don't know much about ships, but I'm sure I could persuade Hook to move us along."

Regina turned to walk into the lower decks of the ship and Emma stood up to follow her. "I'm coming with you."

Regina raised her eyebrows. "I don't need any help, Ms. Swan. I'm fairly persuasive on my own."

"Two mothers are better than one." There was a strange silence as they both thought about what she said. Emma fumbled with her words, "Not that there's anything wrong with single parents or, you know, one mom. Or one mom and one dad. Or two moms. I don't know... uh... I guess I just mean that we're both his mothers and we both should fight for him, right?"

Regina nodded. "Let's get going then."

The two women walked down to Hook's cabin. He had the largest room; his cabin was both a bedroom and the ship's main "office" space. Hook had a huge, dark, wooden desk covered with maps of lands Emma had never even heard of. His walls were covered in bookshelves. There were only three other cabins, so the rest of them had to have roommates. Emma was sure that her parents didn't mind sharing a small room together, but she definitely didn't like having to share a room with Regina. The older woman snored.

Regina barged right in to Hook's room, without knocking. He jumped out of the chair at his desk and pulled out his sword.

The two women backed up and Emma said, "Whoa, we're not here to kill you, Hook. Put that thing away."

He nodded. "Right, sorry." He pointed at the sword as he put it away, "This is just in case Gold gets any ideas."

"He's not going to kill you. Mercilessly mock you? Maybe. Make your life miserable? Probably. But kill you? Not today," Regina said.

Hook sat back down and motioned for the two women to take the seats across from him. They sat, and Regina said, "Can we travel any faster?"

"As soon as we went through that portal, we ended up in the sky. All I've seen for two whole days are clouds, clouds, and more clouds. It's grey and depressing. I can hardly even tell when it's night and when it's day." Emma said.

Hook pointed at one of the smallest maps on his desk. "See this island in the center? That's where we're going. Neverland is a tiny world, and is very hard to find. We have to wait for the clouds to part so that we can follow the right stars."

"Yeah, yeah," Emma said. "Second star to the right and straight on 'till morning. I've heard that before."

Hook looked surprised. "How do you know how to get to Neverland?"

"It's in all the story books."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Emma nodded. "I used to read about Peter Pan, Wendy, and the Lost Boys when I was little."

Regina coughed. "Maybe we can reminisce about our childhoods later, Ms. Swan?"

"Right," Emma blushed. "Sorry."

"Regina, could you make the clouds go away?" Hook asked.

"I don't know."

"There's got to be some sort of spell or something. Just wave your hands around," Emma said.

Regina had no idea how someone with magical capabilities could be so ignorant. "Ms. Swan, you don't just 'wave your hands around' and expect an entire sky to clear. That's not how magic works. It's a complex art, a science almost. I could try to come up with a spell." She looked around the room and scanned the books on the wall. "I'm glad we got on this ship as quickly as possible, but it would have been nice to have brought some of my books. Hook, is there any chance you have any sort of spell book on this ship?"

Hook got up and began looking through his bookshelves. "Most of these are maps and tales of different realms, but you're welcome to look through them."

"Thank you," Regina said. The two women stood up and went to the first bookshelf. Hook started to leave. "I'm going to leave you two to it then, I don't know much about magic."

Emma and Regina both grabbed piles of books and sat back down. They read quietly for a while, until Emma said, "This book is all about the Enchanted Forest. It's got the history of all the old kingdoms and rulers. Would you be in here?"

"I hope I don't count as an 'old' ruler, Ms. Swan. I'd like to think that compared to the ancient ones, I'm fairly young. It'd be unfortunate if I were already marked down as 'history.'"

Emma laughed, but stopped when she turned another page. "What is it, Ms. Swan?"

Emma closed the book, "Nothing."

Regina pulled the book out of Emma's hands and started flipping through it. "It's nothing," Emma said again, but Regina had already found the page titled "The Evil Queen."

She scanned the page, muttering the occasional word, "Murderous... killed the king... a disgraceful replacement for the beautiful queen."

"Regina, don't read that," Emma said, grabbing the book back out of Regina's hands.

"I've heard all of it before, Ms. Swan. None of it is new."

Regina went back up to the shelves and grabbed a new pile of books. A few hours later, after they'd paged through most of the books, Emma said, "This isn't working. Can we just try to make up a spell? If hand waving doesn't work, is there some sort of chant or something?"

"No chanting."

"Then, can we just will the clouds away. I know you're a powerful witch, Regina, and I've got some magic too. I don't know how to use my magic at all, but you and I have done magic together twice now. We opened that portal to the Enchanted Forest and we stopped the self-destructing diamond thing the other day. We can probably move some clouds."

"Well, let's try it then." Regina waved her hands and the books flew back to the shelves.

"Hey," Emma said. "That was hand-waving magic."

"Ms. Swan, do you know nothing about magic or science? Of course you can move objects around with the wave of your hands. Clouds, however, are water, so we could accidentally cause a rainstorm and drown ourselves if we try to move them around."

"So, what do we do?" Emma asked, as they walked up to the main deck of the ship.

"I think that we can will them away, like you suggested," Regina said.

Snow and Charming were sitting on the deck, reading. "You guys might want to go back to your cabin or something," Emma said.

Snow and Charming looked up, concerned. "Why?" Snow asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"No," Emma said. "But Regina and I might make it rain by accident."

"Why?" asked Charming, standing up. Snow followed him.

"We're going to try to move the clouds so that we can find the stars we're supposed to follow," Emma said.

"OK," Snow said. "We'll get out of your way."

They walked off of the deck. Emma wondered where Mr. Gold was. He had magic, and he could help them, but he was probably lying in his bed. He hadn't moved much in the last two days. Emma understood; he'd just lost his son. Emma couldn't get the image of Neal falling into the portal out of her head, but she had a feeling that he was alive. She knew from experience that falling into a portal didn't guarantee immediate death. For all she knew, he'd ended up just where she had gone a few months earlier and those princesses, Mulan and Aurora, were taking care of him.

Emma and Regina walked to the starboard side of the ship and looked down. "It's all clouds," said Emma.

"Really?" Regina asked, sarcastically. "I had no idea."

"Um," Emma said after a moment. "So, what exactly do we do?"

"Think about what you want to see," Regina said. "Imagine the stars."

Emma closed her eyes and tried to think about a night sky. When she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. She looked at Regina and saw that Regina had been staring at her. "Um, were you imagining the stars too?" Emma asked.

"No," Regina said, honestly. "I was too amused by the weird face you were making. You don't have to look like you're in pain."

Emma frowned and shrugged her shoulders. "Hey, I've rarely ever done this before. I'm new to the magic thing."

Regina closed her eyes and said, "Let's try again."

Emma closed her eyes and began imagining a night sky again. After a few minutes she said, "When can I open my eyes?"

"Patience, Ms. Swan."

"Am I supposed to feel anything?"

"Imagine what a cool night breeze feels like."

Emma tried to imagine the night wind whipping at her arms. She tried to imagine the light of a bright star.

"Open your eyes, Ms. Swan."

Emma slowly opened her eyes. She found herself staring into a tunnel. There was a hole in the clouds, and through the hole, she could see stars.

"We did that?"

"I think we did," Regina nodded.

"Nice job, ladies," Hook said from behind them.

Emma jumped when he spoke. "Were you there the whole time?"

"Most of it," he said. "I like nothing better than an attractive pair of witches." He winked at both of them and Regina groaned.

"Just steer the damn ship, Killian."

"Killian?" Emma said. "Your name is Killian?"

"Killian Jones," he said. "You didn't really think my name was 'Hook,' did you?"

"No... I just never thought about it, I guess."

"Right, well, let's get on with it," Regina motioned to the wheel.

Hook went to the wheel and turned the ship towards the newly formed hole in the clouds. "Second star to the right," he said. "And straight on 'till morning."


End file.
